2009年圣诞节阿姆斯特丹飞往美国底特律的飞机爆炸未遂事件使得越来越多的机场开始启用全身扫描安检系统，也就是我们所说的“裸检”。此举引起了很多隐私维权人士的抗议。上周日，德国海盗党的成员们穿着内衣齐聚在柏林特格尔机场，抗议机场“裸检”政策。抗议者们在自己的身体上写满了诸如“藏了什么东西吗？”和“做个好公民——把裤子脱了”等标语，而且还将他们的游行视频上传到了YouTube网站。德国和荷兰政府于本周宣布将一起研究和测试全身扫描安检系统，并有可能在明年开始实行。目前，美国已有19家机场实行“裸检”，美国交通安全部计划将其扩大到另外的300多个机场。不过，乘客可以自己选择接受全身扫描或者由安检人员进行手检。

To protest the use of the so-called Nacktscanner (naked scanner), members of the Pirate Party in Germany organized a “fleshmob” of people who stripped down to their skivvies last Sunday and converged on the Berlin-Tegel airport.

The underwear bomber’s Christmas Day attack has prompted calls for the increased use of full-body scanners at airports that would strip-search passengers down to their naked bodies.

So to protest the use of the so-called Nacktscanner (naked scanner), members of the Pirate Party in Germany organized a “fleshmob” of people who stripped down to their skivvies last Sunday and converged on the Berlin-Tegel airport. They posted a video of their protest to YouTube, with soundtrack provided by Muse’s song “Uprising.” The lyrics articulated their protest: “They will not force us. They will stop degrading us. They will not control us. We will be victorious!”

The protesters marked their bodies with a number of messages such as, “Something to hide?” and “Be a good citizen — drop your pants.”

The full-body scanners use high-frequency radio waves to produce an image of a passenger’s naked body beneath clothes. Anything a passenger is carrying against the body — weapons, drugs or explosives — would be exposed. The scanners would also reveal the presence of prosthetic devices and breast implants.

As such, there have been privacy and legal concerns raised about the invasive equipment, particularly because it’s unclear if the scanners would be able to detect explosives hidden in body cavities and would therefore likely provide only minimal security.

German and Dutch authorities announced this week that they would be working together to test and possibly deploy full-body scanners in the two countries over the next year. The move comes in the wake of concerns that a would-be bomber was able to board a flight from Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport on Dec. 25 wearing packs of chemical explosives concealed in his underwear.

Although Amsterdam has been conducting a test pilot of full-body scanners since 2006, the armed passenger was not scanned by one of the devices before boarding his flight to Detroit. European Union regulations do not currently allow mandatory use of the equipment.

The scanners are currently being used in about 19 US airports, though the Transportation Security Administration has plans to deploy about 300 more. The machines are used on a voluntary basis only; passengers can opt to have a full-body pat down instead of being scanned.

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(Agencies)

Vocabulary:

fleshmob: 来源于flashmob（快闪族）一词，此处用flesh替换flash表示，参与快闪活动的人是“赤膊上阵”，我们暂译为“裸聚”。

（中国日报网英语点津 Helen 编辑）